Expert: Eugenia Springer, Ph.D. - 1/24/2012

Question
With pain,agony so strong i prayed for death to take me.I begged for death as  agony coarsed through my body .as the poison festered into an open wound that left thousands of raw nerve endings bare and that scraped across the ground as i tried to escape death.but worse was the pain of wanting to hold for one last time before i died, the man who had left me there in the desert to die. Relizing he never loved me at all.rememberingthe lonliness of  him not holding me all those nights he "needed his space" becuase of his guilt to GOD for fornicateing. Remembering him lookimg down at me asking GOD for forgiveness ANDat the same time thanking him for bringing me to his life. I still love this man and still let him love me in his own way. Through his own sexual pleasure. If that is the only way to have him than so be it. I love this man like no one has ever loved any one before. For, no one would go back after being left to die .i did.I'll will fight 4 him 2remember how he loved me 2 feel agn what hismind stole away

Answer
Okay Tattianna,

You have poured your feelings of pain out on paper, so you could confront your feelings of betrayal, as it were, and wrangle over your response which evidently still confuses you.  Now, you need to tell your story, if you want help.

Abdicating responsibility for your decision to cling to one who left you to die, is not the answer.  You have felt so enraptured, it seems, with the ecstasy of being sexually appreciated and desired, that you surrendered your mind and body to this man.  But you are discovering what the author, Rhys, penned years ago, "a man's heart is not much involved with his physical desires"--a man does not have to love you or be in love with you to enjoy your body.

God never forsakes. We are nonexistent if God is not expressed as life, in us.  You are angry with yourself, and that is okay. This is all human experience.  At age 40+ you are experiencing that first adolescent crush, with all its emotional turbulence and excitement, longing, and desire to embrace, and hold, and possess.

Maybe you should give more information--say what is really happening with you.  But I wonder if this man is doing this for the first time, here at age 67.  You, because of what you say to yourself in your head, have made yourself vulnerable to him.  You are the only person who can take care of you.  He can use you, and if you keep crawling to him, he can even dispose of you--all this only by your permission.

This man is not responsible for your emotional health and wellbeing--you alone are.

Change the way you think, Tattianna, if you want to reclaim your dignity, self-respect, and emotional wellbeing.  Tell yourself that you are strong, and in control, and no longer living like you are weak and pathetic, so inadequate, that you would endure any measure of disrespect just to get whatever you get from this man.

You are paying a high price for whatever you think you are getting from this man.  You don't have to destroy your sense of personhood to get sexual satisfaction.  You are paying too high a price for the pathetic returns you seem to be getting.

But You alone can deliver you. Change your thinking this moment, and watch yourself make decisions for your own good.  You have surrendered the power of control over your life to this man.  Take back your power.  Turn away from what is not good for you.  Turning away might not feel easy, but you can do it; and it is all for your good.